St. Louis, Missouri

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In 1764, French fur trader Pierre Laclede and his stepson Auguste Chouteau were commissioned by New Orleans merchant Gilbert Antoine Maxent to construct a trading post near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Thus, St. Louis was born. They named the settlement after Louis IX of France, a medieval king (in fact the only French king to become a saint.) The city was not incorporated until 1822.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, modern day St. Louis has a population of 319,294. A subsequent 2013 estimate put its population at 318,416. This makes St. Louis the 58th most populous city in the country and the second largest city in the state. The St. Louis metropolitan area includes the city proper as well as nearby areas in Missouri and Illinois and has a population of 2,905,893. This makes it the 19th largest metropolitan area in the United States.

St. Louis is a port city. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal estimated that the city had a GMP of $133.1 billion. This would make St. Louis have the 21st-highest GMP in the country. The largest employers in the area are BJC Health Care, Boeing Defense, Space & Security, Washington University, and Scott Air Force Base.

The St. Louis metropolitan area is home to nine Fortune 500 companies. These include Peabody Energy, Ameren, Express Scripts, Emerson Electric, Monsanto, Reinsurance Group of America, Centene, Graybar Electric, and Edward Jones Investments.

Several other corporations are headquartered in the region, such as MasterCard, TD Ameritrade, BMO Harris Bank, Scottrade, Wells Fargo Advisors, Patriot Coal, United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit, Ralcorp, Hardee’s, and Enterprise Holdings. Other institutions with operations in St. Louis include Pfizer, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and General Motors.

From its conception as a settlement named after a pious king, St. Louis has been a center for Roman Catholicism in the United States. The city boasts the largest Ethical Culture Society in the country. The city also serves as the home of Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which holds the world’s largest mosaic installation. Another center of worship, Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, is known as the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River and the oldest church in St. Louis.

The St. Louis Symphony is the second oldest symphony orchestra in the United States. It was founded in 1880 and now plays in Powell Hall. Other hubs for the performing arts include The Muny, a summer musical theatre located in Forest Park. It was founded in 1919. The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis is the city’s major regional theater and was founded in 1966.

The most well known landmark in St. Louis is the Gateway Arch, which is a 630-foot (192 M) tall monument on Memorial Drive. It was completed in 1965 and is the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s tallest arch. It was meant to commemorate westward expansion of the United States and serves as the centerpiece for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and German-American structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel designed it in 1947.

St. Louis is home to three major professional sports teams. NHL’s St. Louis Blues, who play in the Scottrade Center, the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, who play in the Edward Jones Dome and have won one Super Bowl, and MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals were established in 1882, and have won the second most World Series in the League (after the New York Yankees) with 11 titles. They play their home games at Busch Stadium.

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